Working for change through Teacher Policy Teams

Today, we’re excited to share with you more about the upcoming 2013 E4E Teacher Policy Team papers.

From the beginning

One of the most exciting ways that E4E has helped teachers become agents, rather than subjects, of change has been through E4E Teacher Policy Teams.

Since E4E started in 2010, teams of diverse teachers have been debating, discussing, and researching critical changes that will both elevate the teaching profession and improve outcomes for students.

To date, E4E members have tackled issues including both principal and teacher evaluation, pay structures, and layoffs.

The process

The papers you’ll see on June 13 (LA) and June 19 (NY) are the results of months of feedback from within E4E’s membership, and of hard work by the teachers volunteer to join teams and spends months working on these critical issues.

Here’s what the process looks like:

To determine topics, each E4E chapter surveys its local members to see which timely and relevant policy issues are top of mind for our members.

E4E members then apply to join Policy Teams.

Each team of 15-20 members meets for 8-12 weeks to review relevant research, discuss best practices, survey and analyze member feedback, and draft a policy paper of recommendations and research, grounded in experiences from the classroom.

Papers will be published and shared with our membership base, stakeholders, and the general public.

The issues

E4E-Los Angeles and E4E-New York each launched two policy teams this year, which have been able to tackle some of the most critical issues within their districts:

Learn more

The type of teacher-led, grassroots change happening through these policy papers is what we set out to accomplish when we came together to start E4E in 2010.

Over the next few weeks, teachers from each team will be sharing more about each topic, the writing process, and the ideas they generated.

For too long, professionals inside the classroom weren’t able to impact the conversations about policy that affect their classrooms and their students. Teacher Policy Teams are one way that educators are changing that dynamic.